The present invention relates to systems for organizing a set of surgical instruments during an endoscopic surgical procedure.
Endoscopic surgical procedures such as ureteroscopy procedures are performed with an endoscope such as a ureteroscope and associated accessories. Typically, there are at least seven or eight accessory instruments that are used whenever a ureteroscopy procedure is performed.
When the surgical instruments for ureteroscopy are simply arranged on a table, there is a tendency for the instruments to become disordered during the surgical procedure. In some cases, instruments have become contaminated or have fallen off of the support table during the procedure.
Various organizing trays have been proposed in the past for surgical instruments, including the trays described in Estes U.S. Pat. No. 5,441,152, Misra U.S. Pat. No. 6,012,586, Murphy U.S. Pat. No. 3,013,656, Kramer U.S. Pat. No. 4,046,254, Leigh U.S. Pat. No. 4,153,160, and Cianci U.S. Pat. No. 4,595,102. However, the trays disclosed in these patents are not well adapted for use with ureteroscopic surgical instruments, because of the highly elongated shape of such instruments.
The preferred embodiment described below includes a tray body that defines a number of recesses. Selected ones of these recesses are shaped to receive and organize the operating portions of respective endoscopic instruments. These recesses each include a respective notch configured to pass the invasive portion of the respective endoscopic instrument to a region alongside the tray body.
In use, the operating portions of the endoscopic instruments are positioned within the recesses of the tray body, while the elongated invasive portions pass outside of the tray body and are supported by the adjacent support surface, typically a table covered with a sterile paper.
The embodiment described below provides the advantage that the tray body itself is much smaller than the endoscopic instruments stored in the tray body. Nevertheless, the tray body still organizes the instruments in a convenient and predictable array throughout the surgical procedure.
The foregoing paragraphs have been provided by way of general introduction, and they should not be used to narrow the scope of the following claims.